Implementing

Confluence at Harvard"

Carter Snowden!

Enabling enterprise collaboration for "..about 8,000 courses, 15 schools, 98 libraries, 21,000 students, 12,000 faculty, 98 libraries, who knows how many labs, 11 museums, a police department, 600 buildings, and an arboretum"

iCommons Group"Harvard University Information and Technology"carter.snowden@harvard.edu"

Agenda"•  Current state"•  Context"•  Requirements"•  Integration"•  Questions"

Context"

Context"

iCommons"•  iSites – "•  Home-grown LMS "

•  Tool-based approach +"

•  Existing all-in-one wiki/blog/discussion tool - ""

•  Distributed support model – school-level liaisons +"

Requirements and Goals"

Requirements - basic"•  Security"•  User privacy"•  Easy access for external collaborators"•  Simple, real-time permissioning"•  Support and provisioning""

Requirements - extra"•  iSites integration"

•  Terms-of use acceptance agreement"

•  One-step addition and permissioning of users and groups for Confluence space admins"

Why Confluence?"•  Evolving iSites tool concept"

•  build/maintain/enhance à integration of proven open source and commercial products"•  Tight integration à loose(r) integration"

•  Confluence.."•  Is proven to integrate well with different SSO solutions"

•  Has a rich permissioning scheme"

•  Plugin architecture, templating, source availability provide flexibility"

Implementation Options"

Users and Groups"GOAL – "Don’t reinvent the wheel -- let Confluence be Confluence"

LDAP"""Aargh.. (for us, anyway)"

Virtual Directory"Aargh, again.."

LDAP

iSites Group DB

Virtual Directory

Solution: Simplify"

•  Map users in our own table"•  At the iSites end, create a REST group service"•  At the Confluence end, create the necessary utilities to

consume the service"•  Use native Confluence user and group stores"

""

""

LDAP iSites Group Service Mapping table

Authenticator plugin

SSO

Utility plugin

Group service

Unique id (private)

Check Privacy settings; Get updated name and email if changed

Get safe id Member-of

Can view/administer

Via Space Permissions page

Confluence Solution"

"Provisioning from iSites"

"Recent Updates in iSites"

"Terms of Use"

Conclusion"Simple is best"Let Confluence be Confluence"

#summit12

Integration strategy? Do what you must, but, to the

extent possible, just step aside and let #Confluence do

its thing.

Thank you!